Processes and methods for the simultaneous quantification of nucleic acids in diseased cells that are based on real-time PCR are provided. The real-time PCR protocol is an excellent tool for reliable quantification of in vitro drug screening and evaluation protocols to determine the efficacy of potential anti-viral agents. Quantification using these simultaneous PCR cycle threshold (Ct) detection techniques during one-step real-time RT-PCR (Applied Biosystems, CA) eliminates the variability resulting from quantification of end-point RT-PCR products. In addition, the mitochondrial toxicity assay is an added tool to assess potential side-effects for these chemotherapeutic agents.